On the Long-Expected Messiah

[Sermon delivered at St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona on the Third Sunday of Western-Rite Advent/Sixth Sunday of Advent Project Advent, December 17, 2023.]

✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.[1]

Many sitting in pews will think, “Where have I heard these words before?” This passage would be echoed centuries later in a synagogue in Nazareth when Our Lord read the first verse of the passage and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled within your hearing.”[2] People would have known that passage well, Isaiah was a very popular subject among Jews of the time, and when Jesus read that line and began to speak about how it would be fulfilled, many would likely have remembered much of the whole passage.

People were looking for a Messiah, an anointed one. At that time and in that area, there was no shortage of the oppressed, the brokenhearted, prisoners and captives, and people in mourning. The Jews who had won political independence after a long and bloody struggle with the Greeks and gained the freedom to worship the God of their ancestors found themselves overrun, occupied, and oppressed by another foreign power. Rome had no problem imposing heavy tribute on their new province, reducing its leadership to the status of clients or vassals, putting down anything remotely resembling resistance, all with a casual savagery that even today is the gold standard of brutality. Loved ones went missing, never to be seen again or to pop up on a roadside nailed to a cross.

People were ready for a Messiah. They were ready for a leader, anointed by God, to shake off the Roman yoke and to free Israel from their oppressors and to deliver them into another golden age. Anyone who stood out came under scrutiny as a potential candidate, whether that person was open to the idea or not. We read in the Gospel today[3] that a scraggly preacher in the Jordan river valley was one such potential claimant. People were ready, but the authorities were not. Those who engaged in the harsh world of realpolitik saw this whole idea of a Messiah as a guaranteed path toward Rome grinding Judaea to a bloody smudge. There also were those who secretly were hoping for a Messiah but still had the dread of Rome at the front of their minds, so they wanted to be darned good and sure that someone really was the Messiah before they threw their weight and even their very lives behind him. Others were certain the idea was all a pipe dream, and they wished to nip any misleading rabble-rousing in the bud before they led too many Jews astray.

Imagine everyone’s surprise, when this man, preaching everything that we read in Isaiah today and calling for repentance, told them he was not their guy. They fully expected this John the Baptizer to say without hesitation, “Yes, yes, I am the one whom you seek. Repent you brood of vipers!” Instead, he said emphatically that he was not the Messiah, that it was not his appointed job to free the oppressed, heal the broken hearted, or proclaim liberty to the captives, but he did still call them a brood of vipers.

Imagine then, their irritation that this man who was in the habit of lofting deadly insults at them while preaching about the coming Kingdom of Heaven told them they were crazy at thinking he was going to claim the mantle of Messiah. The Evangelist did not convey the actual tone, but I would imagine the follow-up question, “Well, who ARE you then???”[4]  was delivered with some degree of aggravation. Not one to back down from a debate or discussion, John stated that he was nothing more than the Messiah’s herald. Here John turns again to Isaiah, well known to his Inquisitors, to state that he was sent to prepare the way for this Messiah,[5] that everything he was doing, the preaching, the baptizing, the warnings, were to pave the way for the Messiah who was already amongst them, though they did not realize it.

People were expecting a Messiah, and John flat out said that he was already among them. The authorities likely at this point were none too sanguine about sifting through the general population. They had a perfect candidate, but he had just declared himself ineligible. The people still had to wait. The authorities still had to wait for someone to declare themselves. Expectation hung over the entire region like a pall.

Isaiah continues in this vein:

For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.[6]

People were looking diligently for a Messiah. They believed that the God of Israel hated injustice and oppression and would not permit Rome to continue to oppress His chosen people, that Israel would once again be free and bask in the favour of the Lord their God. They expected themselves to be transformed from the most despised province to the most favoured of peoples. They were crushed under Rome’s boot, considered a “punishment” assignment for Imperial officials, despised by their neighbours, mistrusted, and even hated by the Samaritans and Idumaeans. How could this be right? How could their God, the maker of Heaven and Earth, let this persist? In their hearts they had to believe that in His time God would address this, that God would send His Anointed to restore justice and to lift Israel from its disgrace. In hope, they looked hard at everyone, asking, “Could he be the one?”

People looked at John, and he said, “No.”

Isaiah says this:

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.[7]

People hung all their hopes on the Messiah. Not only would Israel be lifted from its shame, things would be made right, not just in Israel, but according to the Prophet Isaiah among the nations as well. Not only Israel be praising God, but the Gentiles would also blossom forth in righteousness and praise.

John just was not the One. John did say that the One did walk among them, but they did not know yet Who He was, Whose shoelaces even John in His extreme denial of self was not worthy to untie, someone whose birth we will celebrate in one short week. Someone who preached during his time among them that that were looking in all the wrong places for Him, for all the wrong things from Him, Whose Kingdom was not of this age. The people were looking for a Messiah to deliver them from Rome, but He came among them to defeat the real enemy, Sin and Death, by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Today we await His return, but not to deliver us from fascists or snowflakes, but to seal His victory over Sin and Death in the consummation of the age.

That said, we need to keep a few things in mind lest we fall into traps many have encountered over the centuries and still fall into today. We cannot predict when that day will come,[8] there will be many claiming Jesus has already come again, or even that they are themselves the world’s only hope,[9] some of them even appearing very convincing.[10] Our Lord will not come again as a baby, re-enacting the Incarnation, nor as a politician, nor as a military leader rising up through the ranks, nor as a media personality.  Two thousand years they wondered if it was John, or a selection of other men who stepped forward only to disappoint, or worse, to usher in their destruction. So now also, we look for one to appear in our midst, only this time His appearance will literally be an earth-shattering event, sudden and unmistakable, that no world leader could hope to duplicate or hellspawn mimic.[11]

What then do we do as we wait? St. Paul tells us,

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.[12]

It is by doing this, by proclaiming the Gospel and living our lives by the Gospel, and by not chasing every demagogue that comes down the pike that we will be ready for Our Lord, for He is coming suddenly at an unexpected hour.[13]

✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.

[1] Is. 61.1-4

[2] Lk. 4.21

[3] Jn. 1.19-28

[4] Jn. 1.20-21 paraphrased.

[5] Jn. 1.23, referring to Is. 40.3

[6] Is. 61.8-9

[7] Is. 61.10-11

[8] Mt. 24.36

[9] Mt. 24.11

[10] Mt. 24.24

[11] Mt. 30-31

[12] 1 Thes. 5.16-22

[13] Mt. 24.44